A short Shelf Space Awards for July as I’m still midway through the Television Critics Association press tour. As I write this in one evening off, I’ve only done cable, NBC, CBS, CW and Showtime. We’ve still got Fox, FX, ABC, PBS and the TCA Awards to go. But there were some great Blu-ray releases in July that deserve some space on your shelf, so here are their awards.
Spring Breakers was a mesmerizing film in theaters, so I had every confidence it would look fabulous on Blu-ray. The fever dream blend of styles flows smoothly in HD. Each setting has a distinct tint in the lighting, from the college dorm halls to the beach motel party to Alien’s gangsta pad. When the girls put on the pink ski masks, it colors the whole screen pink. You sometimes see grain from the film negative but it’s always a sharp picture to frame all the jiggling young bodies clearly (jiggling ironically, I think). The cutaways to low grade footage are all the more jarring. With a Blu-ray preserving the unique look of Spring Breakers, you can truly have Spring Break 4 Eva.
Fede Alvarez’ Evil Dead has all the gory details a gorehound would want on Blu-ray. The picture is perfectly clear, and holds up even in dark night scenes in the woods. It’s got that digital look where nothing is obscuring your vision of demons and bloody stumps. Every gore shot is chunky and gooey, and the red blood spray, whether it’s vomit or rain, stands out bright crimson against the otherwise dreary setting.
I’m always on the lookout for Film Festival favorites and Foreign gems, and Kim Ki-duk’s Pieta made healthy rounds from Venice to Toronto.
The film looks stark and gritty on Blu-ray, creating a portrait of the streets of Korea, not like the stylish gangster or horror movies. The settings are factory spaces, back alleys and hovel apartments but perfectly clear and sharp, albeit gray/sepia tinted.
The Fog should have been called The Smoke because that’s what it really looks like. I mean, how else can you get fog to show up on film? I never saw the previous Blu-ray of The Fog but this new transfer looks great. It still looks like film, so it preserves that aesthetic but it’s a sharp, clean print. It’s so clean, that the occasional unavoidable film scratch stands out as a lovely artifact. The darkness and the smoke/fog certainly don’t obscure any of the frame. In fact, they are the highlights in the moody compositions.
Early August Awards:
I really hope I have time to delve into Ishtar at length, but for now let’s just say it finally gets the respect it may or may not deserve. The Blu-ray release is a fine presentation of a notorious ‘80s classic of sorts. The desert comedy maintains a film look with some soft focus and grain, but some sharp landscapes of sand dunes and street markets. You see every grain of sand crusted on Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty’s face, which gives you two authentic visions of grain. Available August 6.
Derek Cianfrance’s epic family saga The Place Beyond the Pines spans generations in three distinct narrative sections. The Blu-ray has a slightly saturated look which pushes the colors a little but not all the way into Tony Scott territory. The picture is sharp and clear, mostly. Some of the nighttime driving scenes get a little hazy, but overall it’s a strong Blu-ray. Those long tracking shots are pretty elegant in HD clarity. Available August 6.
The Flow Like Water Award
Bruce Lee: The Legacy Collection is available August 6 too, and I also hope I have time to delve into this whole set in depth. For now I can assure you the four Chinese language Bruce Lee movies look magnificent on Blu-ray. They’re never going to look totally Blu-ray crisp, but the prints are clean and the colors pop, albeit in soft focus. Way of the Dragon fares the worst with a rougher transfer than the other three. It’s still watchable and it’s still HD but you’ll notice it’s a little fuzzier and dirtier. The Big Boss and Fist of Fury are full of lush, green settings for fights, and the end of Game of Death still boasts the stunning visual of Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sharing a frame, and creating a composition that makes sense.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
